On the morning of November 13, 2006, we launched and landed Goddard – a first development vehicle in the New Shepard program. The launch was both useful and fun. Many friends and family came to watch the launch and support the team.

This has spurred us to develop the proposed concept, which provides implementation of the following four phases of national manned space navigation:
- development of an economically efficient reusable Clipper space transportation system.
- near-earth space industrialization based on ISS Russian Segment development.
- implementation of the Moon program, which initiates the Moon industrialization.
- implementation of manned exploratory missions to Mars.

September 2006

Russia and China may conclude a Moon exploration agreement by the end of the year, the head of the Russian Space Agency said. China has already successfully launched into orbit two manned space vehicles. Its first manned flight three years ago made it the third country to launch a human being into space on its own, after Russia and the U.S.

China and Russia are planning a joint mission to Mars that will bring back samples to earth and land on one of the red planet's tiny moons, state media quoted a Chinese scientist as saying Wednesday. Ye Peijian, of the Chinese Research Institute of Space Technology, made the announcement at a forum on the nation's space technology development, Xinhua news agency said.

The 55 Cancri system involves three gas giant planets and another world that could be icy or rocky and is about the size of Neptune. The setup is 41 light-years from Earth and about 4.7 billion years old, comparable to our Sun.

July 2006

Work could begin in the first week of September on the European Space Agency/Russian Federal Space Agency (RFSA) crew transport system programme, once financial contributions and legal documents are agreed by ESA member states this month.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is launching in the coming weeks a study aimed at European space tourism initiatives.
ESA wants to survey and evaluate the technical and economical feasibility of on-going European initiatives for privately-funded crew vehicles for commercial human space flight and to assess associated technologies.

April 2006

By mapping minerals on the surface of Mars using the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft, scientists have discovered the three ages of Martian geological history – as reported in today’s issue of Science - and found valuable clues as to where life might have developed.

January 2006

The Celestia Motherlode is a repository for various addons like textures, models or celestial objects for Celestia. Celestia is a free, interactive (real-time), 3D astronomy program. It doesn't just show you the sky as it can be seen from earth as most planetarium software does, but allows you to move to and view the universe from any point between the planets and the stars. The Celestia Motherlode hosts over 10 GB of Celestia addons by various creators, which extend or change the way Celestia renders the universe.

The Celestia Motherlode is a repository for various addons like textures, models or celestial objects for Celestia. Celestia is a free, interactive (real-time), 3D astronomy program. It doesn't just show you the sky as it can be seen from earth as most planetarium software does, but allows you to move to and view the universe from any point between the planets and the stars. The Celestia Motherlode hosts over 10 GB of Celestia addons by various creators, which extend or change the way Celestia renders the universe.

October 2005

A complete series of interactive lunar maps, with more than 2,500 geographic formations (including craters, mountains, lakes, seas and valleys) identified simply by moving your mouse cursor over the feature. You must have Javascript turned on in order to access this function.

Darwin will use a flotilla of three space telescopes, each at least 3 metres in diameter, and a fourth spacecraft to server as communications hub. The telescopes will operate together to scan the nearby Universe, looking for signs of life on Earth-like planets. This is a daunting challenge and will require a number of technological innovations before the mission launches in the middle of the next decade.

September 2005

Kliper is also being designed to operate completely autonomously, without the need for pilot control. "It's got to be capable of automatic flight," Thirkettle says.
Some on the team hope Kliper would be able to travel to the Moon, "but I think there's a little bit of science fiction in that", he says.